‘APCON Ad reform – an inspiration to PR industry’

Recently, Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) reformed ad practice with the objective of sanitising the industry. Are we expecting similar reform in PR industry?

Clearly, I think APCON has shown the way and has displayed exemplary courage in the battle to sanitise ad practice in Nigeria. It is exemplary courage because it is something those of us in the leadership of PRCAN are watching closely and we are drawing inspiration from in our preparatory steps to cleaning up the PR practice in Nigeria. It is also exemplary in the sense that the present leadership of the NIPR also has an example to follow. It is for those in the leadership of NIPR presently to decide how they want history to remember them. For us in PRCAN, we have taken a decision that we will not leave PR practice in Nigeria the way we met it, and it will be for good. So, our foray into office as leaders of the PR profession in Nigeria is a collective rescue mission. We have become endangered species of the profession and only bold reforms aimed at sanitising the industry can save us.

The PR industry appears to have a loose entry for practitioners, what is your view and which areas would you like to tidy up?

Any professional practice where the barriers to entry are not clearly defined and enforced is a disaster waiting to happen. That is what has happened to PR practice in Nigeria over the years. This is why I said our foray into office as executives of PRCAN is a collective rescue mission. No matter the volume of law books I have read on law, can I just simply set up a law firm and head to court to defend a client? No matter how I have learnt by experience to treat malaria, does that qualify me to set up a clinic in my neighbourhood and call myself a medical doctor? It is just ridiculous.

Not only has there been a loose barrier to entry, it has become nearly non-existent over time. So, I speak the minds of most of my colleagues by saying, we will like to see the entry barriers clearly defined and enforced.

We have started with that already at the level of PRCAN. We want prospective clients in the private and public sectors to know that there are firms recognised by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to practice PR consultancy in this country. So, if those agencies they have engaged do not belong to that league, they should be asking questions. Before you can call yourself a consultant gynaecologist in medicine, there is a certain degree of expertise in that particular field of medicine you must be certified to have obtained.

That is why we are currently running an advocacy campaign under the theme, ‘Engage A PRACN Agency.’ We are taking this to both the private sector and the public sector. We have published the names of genuine PRCAN registered PR firms in Nigeria. So, it is left for a client to decide whether he or she wants to continue to be serviced and advised by a firm that is not in that league. Secondly, I will like to see enhanced skills and better professionalism in PR practice. Again, this is already being given enhanced attention by PRCAN. At our last executive meeting, we also extended opportunity for the training to brand journalists. This is to enhance their understanding of the practice for better reportage of PR campaigns and industry issues in general. I will like to see the PR practice regulated the way APCON has set out to regulate ad practice by introducing practice licence with effect from January 1, 2013.

Before now, PR agencies in Nigeria were eager to affiliate with foreign agencies. As the African economy is fast growing and investors are looking towards the continent, do we see a reverse on affiliation?

It may not necessarily manifest in the form of a reverse trend on affiliation as you would like to think. If that would happen, some of the things I have spoken about must first happen as condition precedent. Why would any foreign agency waste time discussing affiliation with a Nigerian agency if there are no barriers to entry? They will simply jump into a plane and set up their practice here without qualms. They still see the marketing communications market in Nigeria as a banana republic and a country of ‘anything goes.’ It is this unfortunate impression that people can just jump on a plane and come to set up marketing communications business here in Nigeria without regards for the laws regulating the practice here in Nigeria.

But I am comforted that the practitioners in advertising understand the import of what is happening and they are standing up to the challenge. While our colleagues in advertising are awake, some of our colleagues in PR are totally oblivious of the fact that there is a tsunami sweeping our neighbours away. For those Nigerian PR firms that are in cosy and romantic affiliation relationships with the foreign agencies, my advice is that they should wake up. It’s the dawn of a new day in marketing communications. Europe is back into recession and America is struggling. So, your foreign spouse will divorce you and set up shop right next to you and begin to compete with you in the same market. Africa is where any discerning foreign PR agency would like to be now. Where else will a discerning foreign investor want to be except Nigeria? This is Africa’s second largest market for crying out loud. The predictions are that, with stable reforms, the Nigerian economy will out-grow the South African economy in a matter of years. This is why economic analysts are no longer talking about the BRICS economies; they are now talking about the BRINCS economies with the letter N representing Nigeria. So, unless the barriers to entry are defined and enforced, more foreign agencies will be on the plane to Nigeria to set up in flagrant disregard for the laws regulating PR practice in Nigeria.

Can a PR practitioner accept a job with reduced pay and consequently offer less service?

My answer is very simple. If the pay cannot deliver the value promised, a PR practitioner should learn to take a walk and have his dignity intact. As a company, we have learnt to do that a lot of times. The client should also know that a client that pays his or her consultants peanuts will have monkeys as consultants. That is the bitter truth.

Why is payment of pitch fee still an issue in marketing communication sector? How can this be resolved?

Payment of pitch fee is still an issue and will continue to be an issue for as long as there is a mixed multitude practising advertising and public relations in Nigeria. You recall that even when the Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN) tried to mobilise members around that cause a few years ago, some broke ranks and still went ahead to participate in pitches when they knew very well pitch fees will not be paid. The only way it can be resolved is when dignity returns to the trade among practitioners.

Imagine a client calls a pitch today and all of Nigeria’s top 20 ad or top 20 PR firms demand for pitch fees before participating. We will be sending a strong message to the business community. It is even worse in the public sector because governments do it with impunity at all levels. They invite agencies for presentations, collect all the ideas and give them to their cronies to execute. It is the height of injustice to invite agencies to come and present their intellectual properties to you and you will not pay something back in return for the efforts. That is why some of us don’t prospect for business in Abuja and some states too.

Nothing unites a people in a battle than their collective instinct for survival.

How do you see the business landscape in 2013?

It will be quite a busy year but one which has regrettably started on a slow pace already because of the budget imbroglio. But critical sectors like telecoms will be the defining place in the market. That again is subject to, if government gets its acts together on number portability for subscribers. PR will play a major role for the telecoms companies in engaging with their consumers. The expansion of the retail business in Nigeria will lead to increased business for PR firms with speciality in consumer PR. Our people will soon come to terms with the fact that the era of informal retail markets under the bridge is fast ending.

The South Africans are the ones seeing this opportunity in Nigeria. Our millionaires should be building Shopping Malls now. If the reforms in insurance are successfully birthed this year, we may have some good business springing up in the insurance sector. Nigeria is one of the few large economies where the banking sector is larger than the insurance sector. The reverse is usually the case as you will have insurance companies owning banks. Here, until about a year ago, Nigerian banks owned insurance companies. With our country risk profile, the insurance sector may do well subject to a number of factors